Lets Start with the Regular Bookmark (not the social bookmark)
When we find a website that we enjoy and often visit, we will often bookmark this site or place it on our favorites list. As an example, if you're an internet explorer user you would go to Favorites in the toolbar and then click on Add to Favorites . Now, whenever you want to visit this favorite site of yours, you could just look for it in your Favorites menu.
Here is where a problem arises, lets say that you're not at your regular computer (the computer you often use) and you want to access this favorite website of yours. The option to go to your favorites is no longer there, because you're not at your regular computer. The only way you could possibly view your favorite website is by somehow figuring out or remember the address (URL) of this website.
A Social Bookmark
A social bookmark allows you to save your favorites on a website. These favorites can now be accessed from any computer provided that it can access the internet. It goes without saying that you need internet access either way. What good is being able to access your favorites list if you can't access the internet?
Some of the beauties of having a social bookmark are …
- Access your favorites from anywhere
- Allow others to view your favorites ( if you want )
- See who else considers your favorites their favorites too
- Explore other peoples favorites and discover new favorites
- Get detailed information on which websites are favored most
- *** MOST IMPORTANT *** Help your websites' search engine ranking
That's right I said it, using social bookmarks and promoting others to use social bookmarks can help increase your websites search engine ranking.
Social Bookmarks and Search Engine Ranking
First and fore-most, most social bookmark websites already have a high search engine ranking. They receive this high-ranking for a number of reasons, so much traffic, so much activity, all of the links, and consistent increase of content.
By adding a social bookmark that points to your website, you are in fact adding a link that points to your website from their website. A website with a high rank is now linking to your website, which says nothing but good things to a search engine. As most of you may already know, having a nice strong ranking website link to you is one of the fastest ways to get your search engine ranking up. Now imagine having others use these social bookmarks to link to your website. A search engine can only consider you somewhat important if so many high-ranking websites are linking to you.
Tendenci Provides Built-in Social Bookmark Links
We're one step ahead, ok maybe two. The image below is a screenshot of what the bottom of a typical article looks like in Tendenci. With every article written in Tendenci we give the reader the ability to bookmark your article on one of these Social bookmark websites. This is just another way Tendenci helps search engine optimize your site.
Social Bookmarks Coming to You
Ok, you've patiently waited long enough. Below are some of the more popular social bookmark websites out there. Simply click one and start saving your favorite websites. Whenever you want to view your favorite website you can go to the site and check out your list of favorites. I've been using Delicious for the last month or so, I like it a lot but I'm still trying the others incase I find something that better suites me. Enjoy!